


The Next Time I See You

by laliquey



Category: Deadwood, True Detective
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:38:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3549542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laliquey/pseuds/laliquey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rust and some of his angsty Rust problems circa the Old West.</p><p>Brought on because I started watching Deadwood & thought 2012 Rust looks a LOT like Wild Bill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Next Time I See You

**Author's Note:**

> This leans on characters and plot events from early in Deadwood's 1st season, though I hope it'll make sense with knowledge of only TD/Rust. Thanks for giving it a try!

Rust woke with a headache like a lightning-struck ponderosa, split and burnt and barely kept alive by its deepest parts. His hatband had tipped to the bridge of his nose and shaded him since he'd fallen, but he could smell the invincible hammer of the sun baking the other side.

Taking the hat off caused a sharp kind of blindness, and his attempt to sit up rallied a deep ache in his back that felt like it'd always been there. Once upright, he saw just how bad the landscape's native pumice scraped him up on the way down. He cursed the ill tempered bay roan that threw him there; it had never cottoned to him, probably owing to the fact that it wasn't his.

He gave the pain a moment to soak in before standing and thought how Claire had foretold an agony fraught future for him, though in her mind it'd be doled out in Hell proper rather than the Black Hills. She'd been so goddamned pious in those last days, painting a hideous rose-colored mask over Sophia's death with remarks like, "I'm so glad she's at peace."

The only peace Rust knew had been ripped from him. To him, at peace meant holding her in the rocking chair till her blinks slowed and the light grip on his thumb relaxed. There was nothing _at peace_ about her tiny frame tucked into a pine box or her bluebonnet eyes dulling beneath the dirt. "I'm not glad at all and I'm beggin' you to stop talkin' that way."

"But the next time we see her will be in the Kingdom of Heaven. You'll see. It'll be more glorious than our finest day on earth."

"Ain't nothing more glorious than havin' her here and I don't want no more of your damn church talk. It's all an empty story, Claire, why the hell can't you see that?"

She assumed the formal, austere face he hated. "You shake hands with the Devil when you talk that way."

"I'll spit-shine the Devil's fuckin' boots for what the good Lord did to me."

She'd slapped him hard for that and foretold that he would one day find himself in a lake of fire.

The hot Dakota sun cooking dirt-caked blood into scabs may well have been a wide step on the way. He stood and took up the faint trail he'd been thrown off of, determined that he would see this ramble out till the very end.

He'd done more bad in the last month than the rest of his life combined: struck a woman, stolen what didn't belong to him, burned a church to the ground, and run off like the coward he was. He lacked the courage to end his own life but knew of a place that would decide his last day for him - a rough drinking town high in the mountains where he'd easily slip away on the street, in an alley, or in the dark underground alongside copper ore and sticks of dynamite. He didn't much care which and looked forward to the day the earth would swallow his body and the slow, sour din of living would stop. If Sophia wasn't living life above ground there wasn't much reason for him to, either.

He'd lost track of how many days from home he was, though one particular benchmark was starting to beat him in the head like a hardwood gavel: two days prior he'd foolishly turned a water canteen into a whiskey one, which made his skull too tight and his throat feel inside out. But a line of thin cottonwoods in the distance meant water.

Good, clean water would make him right again, at least for a little while. Small aims were what sustained him now. Acquire something to eat and eat it. Pick a tree in the distance and get there. Put water into himself so that his lips wouldn't crack and whiskey would have a friendlier place to land when the inevitable saloon lured him in and held him.

The cool water was there under the trees as expected, with shaded cottonwood roots making ancient little alcoves and caverns on their way down to drink.

Rust's canteen dropped in an eddy with a plunk when he saw the ghost.

She had wide eyes like cornflowers. _Her_ eyes, and the same fine hair as light as cornsilk in the sun. She lay curled in a blanket nest on a flat rock, and she saw him, too.

"Hey! What the fuck you lookin' at?" The voice was solid as a brown boot and it took a moment to see the person camouflaged amongst the rocks and trees. "I asked what the fuck'cher lookin' at!"

It was a woman of sorts and the pale ghost was in truth a human girl. She was a child too young to be left alone but older than Sophia by a mile, which woke Rust up enough to answer her offended chaperone. "Nothin', ma'am. I'm sorry."

"Alright, but you better just fuck the hell off, mister. I've kilt cocksuckers for less."

He swept up as much water as he could in one go and kept moving.

Downstream was a shady spot to drink, and as he cleaned his scrapes he wondered what would move someone to kill a man for less than a laying on of eyes by accident. A two columned ledger lived in his head for oddities like this, and the side of life's transactions not being worth the trouble held far more ink than the other. He knew with the confidence of a clergyman that the world didn't need a person who'd get that riled up over nothing. Hell, the world didn't need people at all, every horse with a fucking bit shoved in its mouth knew that, and Rust was suddenly ashamed for cursing at the stolen roan when the problem had been him all along.

The water sank into him and he slipped into an involuntary half-nap up against the base of a tree, where he dreamt of the triumph and comfort of his silent end in the mountains.

*

Deadwood was so close to where he'd slept he'd been too tired to see it.

The town was like a dusty sunbeam in some parts and like a melted mud candle in others. Rust couldn't help but notice how people on the street stared at him, frozen the moment their eyes locked but then they'd bow back in deference, bent by awe or maybe fear, and they whispered about him but never loud enough to hear. Strange as that was, he needed a drink and a bed, which might've been a luxury before but money wouldn't spend where he was headed.

A happy piano could be heard outside the Bella Union, but the Grand Central Hotel looked more in line with his temperament and the contents of his pocket. He went in and got the same look from the man behind the counter that he'd gotten from everyone else.

"Hello, sir." A thousand nerves snapped and brewed in him. "May I introduce myself as E.B. Farnum, the proprietor of this establishment. I'd ask how I might be of service to you but I expect I know who you're lookin' fer."

Everything was so strange Rust played along. "I expect you do."

"If you're interested in a room, it's my great distress to tell you that we ain't got any. Well, we've got 'em, but they ain't been cleaned yet."

"Yet," Rust repeated.

"Yessir," Farnum laughed nervously. "We was plum full up last night. What a great and terrible problem to have. While I regrettably cannot offer you a room perhaps it would be of some help if I could point you towards your brother's."

It was a gamble he might as well take. "That'll do."

Stairs creaked on the ascent like a continuo against Farnum's ornamented small talk. "Mr. Hickok's a bit of a luminary here. An ideal guest and citizen. And look, here he is."

Rust understood why people were saying what they were when he saw the man lying on the hallway floor with his hat on his chest. He could be his brother, with the same wavy hair and mustache, both gray-gold as Nebraska shale. Whatever reason led these two to think sleeping in the hall was normal, Rust pretended to believe in it, too. "Reckon I'll sit an' wait for him to wake up."

"I appreciate your understanding, sir. It is my sincerest hope that I might make this inconvenience up to you in the future."

"That's my sincerest hope, too."

Farnum nodded and returned to his post downstairs, leaving Rust to sit in weird limbo next to Bill. He knew of him, of course - who hadn't heard of Wild Bill Hickok? It awed him a little and he got a bird feeling in his chest that lifted him a bit from the mire of the last months. People on the street must've thought he was him.

One eye opened and a voice with far more smoke in it than Rust's said, "Who the fuck're you?"

"Look, I don't want no trouble, I'm on my way through. That Farnum thought we was brothers."

Their eyes weren't all that different, either. "Where you from?"

"Texas."

"Where you headed?"

"Butte America, I guess. Had some tragedy occur back home and don't know what all's next." The head-to-toe dull black likely gave away that he was in mourning and he hoped there wouldn't be questions.

"You on a schedule?"

"No sir. Not for the rest of my life."

Bill propped up on one elbow and gave him a good look over. "You might could be of use to me but I'd rather the chiseler downstairs didn't hear. I'll tell you in here." He crawled his way up and made for one of the doors. "There's a sick young'un in here so we gotta talk soft. That's why I'm out here, 'case you wondered."

The door creaked open and Rust got a mouthful of dry air because she was there.

His ghost girl was there.

Pins pricked at his hands and her wide blue eyes looked only at him; she was more angel than ghost now, set in a bed of white linens. Her recognition of him pressed at his breastbone in a most uncomfortable way.

"You!" The woman in brown's shout made him flinch. "I know that fucker, Bill!" Fire shone in her eyes as an accusatory finger wagged in his direction. "You're that cocksucker I seen at the crick. I bet I know what you get up to. Followin' women and children like some kinda cocksucker."

"Settle down, Jane." Bill gave the little girl's cheek a soft pinch and she smiled up at him. "Why don't you take our young charge back outside for some fresh air."

"But we was just out there!"

"Sunlight benefits children, I've heard," Bill said, and a shift in her stance showed that he'd won. "Thank you, Jane."

She bundled the girl close in her arms and Rust nodded as politely as he could when she swept past. "Ma'am."

"I like you 'bout as much as you fuckin' like me so let's dispense with the horse shit."

"Yes ma'am."

She clutched the girl tighter and muttered something about money owed on their way out the door.

Bill waited for the footsteps to fade and Rust was glad to see a whiskey bottle invited to their conversation. "You'll have to forgive Jane. Some might say the 'Calamity' part of her name's directly related to manners but I'm in no position to judge."

He poured and Rust thought. He was ordinarily sharp on figuring people out but everything here was so strange, including the situation in that room. He sensed nothing between Bill and Jane, but nothing much explained the yellow-haired child. "Is that little one yours?"

"No, she's a wolf-bit orphan Jane's takin' care of. Funny how she can't form a civil sentence half the time but took to mothering like a fly loves shit. Anyway, seeing as how you're not on a schedule, I'd be glad to hire you if you don't mind bein' stuck here a while."

"What for?"

"Let's just say plenty'd be happy to have the kind of problems I do, but I ain't them." He looked Rust over again and liked what he saw. "If I can get the entire town spooked about you, I believe I can do what I like with less attention."

*

Down in the lobby, Jane's parting insult rang in Farnum's ears even after she was out the door again with that sick child. That woman could learn some things, he thought. Things about catching flies with vinegar, and he straightened the guest cards and looked forward to the day she'd check out of the Grand and never come back. What a relief that day that would be, and he slipped into a quiet little daydream at the very thought of it.

Gunfire upstairs spat like a lead hailstorm and Farnum jumped like it was aimed at his own feet. The horrendous bangs roared through the air and he fell and cowered on the floor under a worthless hat made of his own laced hands. It was as if the shots were shredding every bearing beam and the entire structure was fixing to fall.

Bill Hickok swanned downstairs like an ugly debutante. "Weren't nobody hurt, my brother s'just makin' a point," he said. "Damage can go on my tab. An' the sooner you can get the man his own room the better off we'll all be."

"Yessir."

Bill went outside and Rust descended the staircase a moment later, a deep-worn scowl dragging his mouth toward hell.

"The fuck you lookin' at?"

"Nothing, sir. I hope to have the room situation resolved shortly."

"Good," he said, and went to Bill's favorite card parlor, where he was to sit, drink, and frown wordlessly until Bill showed up.

Bill's detour was to the Gem, where Al Swearengen practically slipped in his own grease trying to be hospitable. Bill interrupted the cascade of sweet talk to say, "Gimme a bath and your best girl. If you got a personal favorite that's the one I want, but know that she'll be used for groomin' reasons, not the usual ones. I'm a happily married man."

In one of the back rooms, Trixie poured two pails of stove-hot water into the cold already in the tub and left to get the little milking stool painted red to better fit the environs. Bill had already lowered in, and she sat beside him and hummed as she worked bits of dirt from under his nails with a sharp little tool. "This is such a relief I might move in." Bill's theatrical sigh fluttered up through the steam. "Don't tell nobody, but I got a brother show up in town. He's crazy enough to eat the devil with horns on. Most'd say I ain't afeared of anything, but..." He gave a small shudder that would convince on any stage. "He kills men easy as mosquitoes and don't even care."

She mirrored his furrowed brow. "Why's he here?"

"He came spoutin' somethin' about our ma's deathbed wish that we get along. But I trust him 'bout as far as I could throw him. Our ma's probably swinging from a chandelier somewhere."

"What's his name?"

"Rust. After what color blood looks in yellow dirt. He's had that nickname since he was twelve, if that paints a picture any." He quietly described the velvet pouch of plague Rust carried with him, saying he had an immunity but could leave death in his wake, either the quick bloody kind or the slow bumpy one. "He's sprinkled it all acrost the range to those've done him wrong, even if what he saw as wrong weren't necessarily so. He could wipe out this entire camp with a flick of the wrist."

"Oh my goodness."

"If he ever comes your way my best advice is don't look him in the eye too long and do what he says."

Bill left the Gem much cleaner and a good inch taller than when he went in, and Farnum was talking to Al at the bar, exactly as expected.

False brother Rust was right where he was supposed to be and Bill slipped him a heavy handful of coins. "Head to the Gem and do just what you did here. Guy that runs the place is a flannel-mouthed liar so it won't take much to get him uncomfortable. And have one of the whores give you a bath, if you want. I did and I ain't sorry." He fanned out his fingers. "Look how my nails shine."

Rust pocketed the money. Getting paid to drink was easily the best day's work he'd ever had and he felt a different person when he walked out into the mud. The facts built into his new identity suited him well and as much as he'd grown to hate the bulk of humanity, he liked Bill. It would be good to help him, and a service to others to frighten them enough to consider the true value of their own lives. He hoped for a mass conclusion that they'd somewhat overestimated themselves.

Al Swearengen was just what Bill said he was. "Ah, the other Mr. Hickok. Your legend looms large in these fledgling parts," he said, and poured whiskey Rust hadn't asked for. "I wonder what I might do to get our relationship started on a good foot."

"Didn't come here for a relationship or your chin music," Rust said, and it took no acting to muster a hard stink-eye. He downed three more whiskeys before saying, "I want a bath and a girl." Eyes rested on a dark-haired one that might have looked like Claire from the back. "That one."

He followed her and clarified his intent. "Clean me up good and be sure to do my fingernails. That's all I want. No talkin', no pussy."

She folded his clothes and soon forgot his instructions. "What's your story, mister? Where you from?"

"I said I ain't much for talking," he said, and as much as this brusque routine was truly how he felt, the bathwater felt about as good as anything ever had.

A blonde came in with a face that looked like half of it had been dragged behind a wagon. "No," Rust said. "I ain't payin' for two of you."

"I'm on the house. Just in case you want somethin'...extra-like."

They wanted to get him on his back and loose, limpid. Talking. "There's a knot in my back you can work on. Right shoulder."

He sensed her disappointment behind him. Knuckles dug into the knob he probably got from barricading the church doors with pews and scaling the one tipped on its end to climb out a high window. It felt like a hard marble, a bitter, bad rock under his skin. "So, what brings you here, stranger?"

Rust wouldn't answer and refused to make a sound when pain burst in a red star under her thumbs.

"Good lookin' man like you probably has stories to tell. You don't seem to be here for pleasure so it must be for business. What's your business, mister?"

"I heard you're Wild Bill's brother," the dark one said, and Rust suppressed a cringe at the pain and pushed both women away in one wet move of his arm.

"Ladies," he said after a long pause. "I came here wantin' one thing from y'all. Easier than what you usually do and ain't neither damn one of you givin' it to me."

Something in his stare scared them, and they submissively washed his hair, cleaned his nails, and patted him dry, with a nervous invitation that he could come back for anything, any time. Al would only take part of what was owed when he tried to pay downstairs.

"That's right nice of you," Rust said dryly. "Just the kinda gesture I'd expect from the biggest toad in the puddle."

Al processed the snub but hadn't a response.

"By the way, I suggest you take better care of your line. Might be your customers or maybe it's you doin' it, but it ain't right."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Hickok?"

"Civilized men don't hit women and no decent one'd fuck a girl what's been hit like that," Rust said.

Then he tipped his hat and was gone.

*

That night, he stole another glance at the blue-eyed girl before retiring to his own room, which was a desolate affair and hardly worth the wait. Bill knocked softly and let himself in. "Less traffic in here than in the hall," he said. "Mind if I join you? I'm goin' back out for cards but not just yet."

"Help yourself."

They settled into a head-to-feet arrangement on the bed and Rust felt like he was looking at the other end of a playing card, with Bill his twin Jack of Spades. "There's a man I want you to look out for," Bill said. "Name of Jack McCall. Got a dropped eye and a putty nose. He's a sore loser and none too happy with me."

"Will do."

"Appreciate it."

Bill toed Rust's shoulder with a playful nudge and stuck a foot in his face. "Member doin' this when we was kids?"

"I sure as hell don't," Rust said, and almost looked happy for a moment. But then the pain hardened back into him and he looked as took down and used up as a man ever had.

They seemed close enough to ask. "What you runnin' from, Rust?"

He removed himself from the narration and listened to the timbre of their respective voices, Bill's like dark burled walnut and his own light like sand. "A ghost."

"You can tell the whole story or nothin' of it," Bill said. "Whichever suits you best."

"I found my daughter dead in her cradle." Blue and cold, he'd tried to knead life back into her little lands and held her in the rocking chair for a long, long time. "My wife said God had another plan for her but I couldn't hear it."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

Rust nodded his thanks. "Since the day it happened it bothered me more than it did her, so I said she'd get no more children a mine if she let the first one go so easy. I got sick in the head over it an' started thinkin' about hurting her, so...I left."

"Ever think about going back?"

Rust swallowed hard and remembered that last argument, when he'd only meant to startle her but knocked her unconscious instead. It still troubled him that he'd left her face-down on the floor but he'd been too scared to turn her over and see what he'd done. "No. I don't believe she'd take me."

"Someday when your heart hurts less you might start over. I bet my Agnes could find somebody could stand you. She's in the circus business, knows lots of interesting people."

"Kind of on the fence about whether livin' or dyin' interests me more."

"Understood."

They lay in silence for a long while, each thinking of things that were good and things that made them sorry. Then Bill said, "I'm takin' you out for a steak. We need to put some color in you."

It helped, and they went to Nuttal & Mann's after dinner and ended up having a decent night. Rust drank in silence and Bill and won so many chip stacks he gave some away just so the playing could continue. Rust only had to deal with putty nose once. All it took was a narrow, steely look to shut him down and Bill's subdued joy in it was so strong Rust felt it, too.

He decided that whatever Bill's use was for him, he'd stay alive long enough to do it.

The game broke up at dawn and they went back to the Grand for breakfast and another head-to-feet rest before doing it all over again. "Sorry for keepin' you up all night," Bill said, and Rust claimed not to mind 'cause he didn't really sleep much anyway. They went back out at noon, and the sunny, dry air implied a run as good as or better than the night before. But Charles Rich, who'd sustained heavy losses the night before, was already at the poker table and bent on making things difficult.

He'd planted his fat ass in Bill's chair.

Bill always sat with his back to a wall - Rich knew that. Everyone west of the Mississippi did.

"I'd be much obliged if you'd switch me places," Bill said.

"Nope," was the response, and Rust moved to step in but Bill waved him off.

"Don't mind him," he said, and lowered himself to the chair he didn't want. "It'll just make me more determined to take every fucking cent he has. Your surname's gonna be Poor by the time I'm done with you, Charlie."

Rust sipped slow at the bar but shot to his feet the second he noticed putty nose, agitated and pacing just outside. McCall backed up at the sight of him and pretended he had no business there and just happened to be walking by. "Hey." Rust brought an end to the play-acting. "I think you might want to get the fuck outta here."

"Your brother..." Jack said in a high, whiny singsong. "He's a condescendin' fuckin' cunt's what he is."

Rust smiled a thin, dangerous smile. "Let me say it another way and try an' listen this time." He got close enough to smell the moss-teeth that were bad enough to see from a distance. "I'll peel your fuckin' face off an' watch you choke on your own stones, understand?" Even the bad eye paid attention; McCall's grip was lax and his gun popped right into Rust's hand like it belonged there. "Now get the fuck outta here. The next time I see you near my brother I'll put you down with your own fuckin' gun."

McCall ran, and Rust's adrenaline blew him to a sky-high euphoria. If terrifying a person had that big a payoff, what would it feel like to kill one? The next time he was head-to-feet with Bill he'd ask what his death count was and see if he couldn't match it someday. If McCall hadn't already reduced himself to a speck at the end of the road he might have gotten started right then.

Back inside, Bill had a similar glow that things were going his way and had even won the right to sit in Rich's chair. "You'll notice we've reconfigured," he deadpanned. "Sometimes wantin' a thing bad enough can make it happen."

"Must be your lucky day. Think I'm gonna go make a tobacco plug happen."

"Stay outta trouble and don't kill anybody." Bill smiled around the table and made sure he met every man's eye.

The mercantile was nearby, and something warm rustled inside Rust as he stood before the cases and shelves of anything one could ever want. The storekeep fetched him his tin, but he wanted something else. "You got things that might entertain little ones?" he asked. That sweet girl's days must have been so dull stuck in that bed with that woman hovering over her at all hours...

He bought her a little slate with a chalk stick held on by twine and couldn't wait to give it to her. Walking past all the storefronts, it took conscious effort to still look mean.

The lobby of the Grand even seemed brighter inside. "Good afternoon, Mr. Hickok," Farnum said, a greeting which seemed completely natural and pleasant to hear.

Rust went upstairs and knocked on the door as gently as he could. He wasn't even sorry to see Jane, not even when she asked, "What in the hell do you want?"

"Bill's thinkin' about you. He's havin' a good run and wants you around as a good luck charm to keep it going."

There was a lift in her eyes. "He said that about me?"

"Sure did, but he's actin' real superstitious so don't tell him I told you." He held up the slate. "I'll tend to her an' I got her this so she can draw pictures if she wants. Does she ever talk?"

"Hasn't tried, but we think she's raised on one a them Scandahoovian languages. Are you sure Bill said that about me?"

"Sure as shit, he did."

"You owe your patient a penny," Jane said, and felt good enough to leave once the girl marveled at her new gift.

"Go ahead," Rust encouraged. "It's for you. Here, I'll show you." He sketched a little flower on the side and her cheeks plumped with a smile. "Go ahead, now. Draw somethin' nice."

Triangle trees popped up, along with hills and a stream. "You're a real artist," Rust said, and saw that she was pleased that he was pleased. His flower, which had been floating in the sky, disappeared under several strokes of his fingertip, and she spread her fingers out and tried to wipe out her forest. "I'll save you some time. Watch this," Rust said, and dragged the slate against the bottom of his sleeve. She smiled at the chalk dust clinging to his shirt and started back in to draw a cabin in a meadow, then rows of circles and scribbles that might have been a garden. Rust settled beside her with his back against the bedframe and felt almost drunk; he knew he'd had happiness like this before but it was so blinding in that moment he couldn't recall any that came before. And then his heart squeezed tight when she signed her work in the corner.

 

_Sofia_

 

"Are you..." Tears stung his eyes and the pain in his chest was like fire and ice all in one. "Is your name Sofia?"

She nodded and he patted her chest.

"You. Your name's...Sofia."

"Sofia," she confirmed, and reached out to pat him with her tiny, chalky hand to ask who he was.

"I'm Rust. But...you can call me papa, if you want to." He took her hand and issued another pat. "Papa."

"Papa?"

"Yeah. Papa."

It confused her, but then she remembered she had a slate. Flowers were her next masterpiece, and Rust watched it unfold through a blur of some of the deepest, strangest tears he'd ever felt.

He'd only wanted a little time with her but this was most certainly a sign. Jane was gone, but for how long he wouldn't know. He had to do this and now.

"Now Sofia," he said, and liked the way it piqued her attention. "I'm sure you like Miss Jane fine and all, but I was thinkin' we might could start over without her. Just me an' you. I never woulda thought that before this minute, but circumstances seem to demand it. Yes?" She copied his nod and he rolled her little body up in the covers like the pastry Claire used to make.

The second horse Rust ever stole was a fat one, slower and much more gentle than the last. In his haste he left half his belongings behind and fastened what he had onto the back with Sofia bundled up in his left arm. He had water and a napkin full of biscuits and it would take some time to get to Texas but he knew the way back. Even if Claire wouldn't take 'em they'd be fine.

Sofia slept for a time, then he stopped and spread out her blanket on the coarse prairie grass. "Thought you could use a little somethin'," he said, and pinched off little bits of biscuit for her that she reluctantly took. She uttered a few strings of sound that felt like complaints. "What's wrong, Sofia? Tell papa what's wrong."

He'd only ever heard the two words out of her but suddenly there was a rush of them, little cleaved words in her language, in her bluebell voice. And then she cried, great gales of tears and he didn't understand the words but he knew that she wasn't his and that this wasn't right. Snot bubbled out her nose and smeared under her hands as she suffered the kind of pain he knew himself.

He had to bring her back. There was no other way.

Another reason stacked heavy on him on the way back. He'd have to answer for the fire. Even if Claire wanted him, he'd land in jail with no daughter and nothing but the bad stink of bad men; despite the counterfeit pleasure of his Deadwood false identity and found family, his first plan was still the best plan.

Sofia relaxed when she knew where they were headed, and she wrapped her arms around his neck up until he carried her up the stairs of the Grand. The door to the room was open with Bill and Jane pacing inside.

"There you are! Oh, fuck. Fuck..."

Rust put Sofia on the bed and patted the blanket tenderly around her shape. "I'm sorry," he said. "I...I thought I was fit to care for her and I'm not."

Jane's slaps came in a fierce windmill of hands. "I knew you was bad the day I first seen you. I knew you was no good, you no good cocksucker!"

"Jane," Bill warned. "Don't."

"I promise she ain't hurt," Rust said though guilty tears that would spill if he blinked. "I didn't do nothin' to her, it's just...her name's same as my little one. I thought takin' her was right but it wasn't and I'm sorry. To all three of you."

Sofia reached up to cling to Jane and Rust backed out into the hall; he saw the weathered hurt in Bill's blue eyes and couldn't stand it.

"I don't suppose you'll want to stay on with us," Bill said in a sad way that meant it was already decided.

"I don't see how I can."

"Damn right you can't, you fuckin' cocksu-"

"Jane, don't. Come on, Rust. I'll help see you out."

Rust wept once safe in his room, unashamed by his own grief. "I'm sorry," he said as he collected the what he'd abandoned before. "I wasn't thinkin' straight and I'm sorry for worryin' y'all."

"It's alright." Bill handed over his handkerchief. "Life's dealt you a bad hand. Can't fault you for wanting to bluff it into somethin' better." He gestured that the handkerchief belonged to Rust now, and emptied his pockets of money that he held out till Rust begrudgingly opened his palm.

"It's too much. I can't take all this."

"Of course you can. We're brothers." Bill clapped him on the shoulder and led him downstairs and out into the air. "This has been real interesting. I'm sorry that we couldn't keep it up awhile longer."

Rust was even sorrier but didn't know how to say so. "Her name's Sofia."

"That's a good name," Bill said, and looked Rust deep in the eyes. "I hope to see you again one day, and I'd like for you to be alive and happy when I do. You'll try, won't you?"

Rust wouldn't look at him. "I will."

"The next time I see you we'll get good and drunk. Reminisce about our fraternal bond and how our unconventional upbringing made us who we are now." He closed arms around him and gave him a good slug on the back. "Good luck, Rust."

"Same to you." Rust pressed his lips tight, turned, and went.

Back up in the room, Sofia was drawing on her slate while Jane was all fired up. "If that motherfucker comes back I'm gonna kill him, Bill."

"You won't see him again."

She said a few more things but he stopped listening and stepped to the window. He watched Rust's tired canter make its way down the street and wanted him to duck into someplace - a saloon, or maybe the mercantile for trip provisions...if he did, it'd be a lucky sign to go after him and he probably would. But Rust kept on his slow, steady path, and Bill wished that the pain he felt might somehow make Rust's less.

The boys had promised to save his spot at the poker table, but that was hours ago and cards didn't interest him so much as they had then.

He stayed at window until he couldn't see Rust at all.


End file.
